Memnon. 183 river Indus, and settled on the frontiers of Egypt '^'^ It is unnecessary to dwell on the extreme uncertainty of such statements, and I will only point out two causes which may explain their origin, and which do not appear to have been sufficiently noticed by those who, having been inclined to adopt them on other grounds, have attributed a higher value to them than they can fairly claim '^ In the first place we find that early after the Macedonian conquests attempts began to be made to deduce the Egyptian mythology from the Indian. Plutarch censures Phylarchus for having said that Dionysus first brought two oxen into Egypt from India, and that the one was named Apis, the other Osiris^"* It is clear enough to what historical inferences these mythological conjectures were likely to lead. In the next place we read in Procopius as an acknowledged fact, that the Nile flows from India ^^. When this hypothesis was first started we do not know, but whenever it was received, the conclusion that the Ethiopians came from the same land in which the river took its rise, might naturally follow. But however unworthy of regard may be the scanty testimony of the ancients on this question, there are other sources of information still open, from which it may not be too sanguine to hope for a solution of it. This can only be looked for from a comparison of the ancient systems of re- ligion and polity in the two countries : but it seems by no means improbable that such an investigation may finally ascertain the degree of connexion between them, and their relative antiquity. In the mean while the author of an "^^ Syncell. i. p. 286. Tiepl AldLoiroov, Trodeu rja-av, Kal ttov (joKr](Tav, AWloTre^ dird 'Ivdov iroTafxov ai/acrTai/res irpo^ t^ AtyuTTTO) wKfjcrav. Parthey^ De Philis In- sula p. 65 thinks this passage spurious as to the form, though not, if I understand him, as to the substance. He says, after mentioning one of the passages of Philostratus ; Alia coloniae Indicae mentio apud Syncellum spuria nobis videtur, cum res Aethio- pum toto libro non amplius commemorentur. Duo versus ; irepl AidLOTrwv — ujKi^a-av inter quadragesimum et quadragesimum primum Aegypti regem intempestive inter- jecti, (?) pro capitis amissi initio argumentove margini adscripto habemus. 76 Bohlen i. p. 119. says The attacks on these testimonies may be parried with no less ease than it may be shewn on the other hand that they are not conclusive." •77 De Is. et Os. c. 29. ■^^ De Edif. vi. near the beginning. NelXos fxev 6 Trora/xos tg 'IuSmv eir AiyvirTou ft>€p6fi€vo9. Perhaps we may attribute something to the distinction made by Hero- dotus, and seemingly confirmed by Homer, between the Eastern and Southern Ethi- ■ opians.
